[PD] calling all GUI-gurus!

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Sep 30, 2004, at 5:17 PM, ix wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 30, 2004 at 10:52:53AM +0200, derek holzer wrote:
>> Hey gang,
>>
>> I 've had a few thoughts about some GUI-enhancements that might make
>> life better for me, and hopefully for others. I'd be willing to work
>> with someone who is better versed in TCL/TK than me to get them done, 
>> if
>> any of you think they are worthwhile or do-able.
>>
>> 1. Make Yves' Grid Graph-on-Parent compatible
>>
>> I mentioned this in another mail, but Yves made Grid with an absolute
>> coordinate system, which makes it non-compliant with the GoP system.
>
> redoing grid for ToXY would take a few seconds, i'll add it to 
> http://whats-your.name/pd/GrO later on...
>
> so far i like toxy quite a bit,it seems to handle GOP ok, (and 
> especially due to the fix-toxy-once, have all gui-objects-work-again 
> thing while the gui itself is in a state of redesign) except (correct 
> me if im wrong) the objects dont actually exist unless the window 
> containing them is open, which means you generally can't populate them 
> with data with a loadbang, you have to more or less write into the 
> objects init core to send a bang when the graphical portion is built 
> to do further stuff..

Frank Barknecht wrote a [grid] using data structures.  Y'all should 
check that out.  But it would be great to have this collection of toxy 
widgets in the CVS so that they can be included in the installers, etc.

.hc



>
>>
>> 2. Transparency
>>
>> I would like to use something like Grid to quickly draw a set of
>> variables, i.e. draw a 32-bank filter response curve or a 128-bin FFT
>> curve. Using the native table objects in PD is not only clumsy, but 
>> they
>> can actually hold up DSP. I would also like to see the results of this
>> drawing on sliders in the "same object" on the screen, the way [for
>> example] Freqtweak or Spectral Delay work. So, how could I make a
>> transparent Grid, or even a transparent Ben Bogart XY controller, 
>> with a
>> row of Vsliders or Hsliders visible underneith? Is it possible? With
>> GoP? With some TCL/TK magic?
>
> the tk 'core' doesnt support transparency and antialiasing (except for 
> fonts). tkzinc supports this, but, it is actually a different canvas. 
> although in the past ive had luck embededing canvases inside canvases 
> using tk 'windows', so it still may be possible to integrate tkzinc 
> stuff right into the patch without needing a new toplevel 
> window...will let you know.
>
> BLT works well too, just for your basic controller-editing stuff, 
> letting you grab onto points of a line and streetch them around etc, 
> plus it gracefully supports overlay of as many vectors as you want. it 
> also supports spline interpolation, so you can have the msp4.5 
> 'techno~' object with infinite levels of stuff to tweak, instead of 
> just 2. but of course it isnt as pretty, due to no 
> antialiasing/transparency.
>
>>
>> 3. Drop-menu
>>
>> Yes, Yves' Playlist is a very nice tool. If you are browsing for 
>> files.
>> [And even then, filenames which are very long, or directories which 
>> are
>> very full, tend to make it unreadable unless you make the Playlist
>> sooooo huge!]. But I would like a simple one-click drop-menu, for 
>> things
>> like Memento presets or samplenames which have been loaded to arrays.
>> Would Toxy be a good place to investigate this? Is it possible at all?
>
> yeah, toxy is fine for that, actually theres some default '.wid' files 
> that do some basic popup menu stuff (but they seem a bit 
> broken/braindead) or maybe i didnt mess with them long enough
>
> i also use the tktreectrl for this. to show folders of sequence 
> patterns and lists of vst plugins etc in a heirarchical way. however 
> my PC broke and ive tried getting it going on linux and the tree shows 
> up in the patch, but is always 'empty'. had to comment out a 'note to 
> MAC/Linux devs: fix something()' in tktreectrl source so maybe its 
> truly broken. if you can figure it out (GrO link above) let me know, 
> otherwise it can be redone in a native tcl-only widget, but im not 
> going to bother because i only really use windows unless my machine is 
> dead...
>
> also i tried the drag and drop stuff and while the droppable areas 
> show up, i cant get it to accept any drops, from konqueror, or rox. 
> maybe its the window manager? i have only treid with XFCE, and setting 
> the focus to 'onmouseover' normally the title bar changes, but not 
> when also holding some files.., but i suspect it all works fine with 
> sawfish or something..
>
>
>> Thanks for any thoughts on this matter.
>>
>> d. [who wishes very much to be in Graz, but who did his festival 
>> booking
>> too early this year, and is in Riga instead :-( ]
>>
>> -- 
>> derek holzer ::: http://www.umatic.nl
>> ---Oblique Strategy # 22:
>> "Be less critical more often"
>>
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                                     http://at.or.at/hans/